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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28480950">Kronia</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklight/pseuds/sparklight'>sparklight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(Brief and light), Fluff, M/M, Role Reversal, Romance, Service</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:15:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,814</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28480950</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklight/pseuds/sparklight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ganymede and Zeus accidentally end up in Athens during the Kronia festival, summer counterpart to the Roman Saturnalia. Ganymede, unfamiliar with the celebration as he is, as well as the background for it, doesn't expect Zeus' displeasure. Or the little bit of him playing along with it, after their outing.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ganymede/Zeus (Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Kronia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Summer, with Gamelion and Velchania long past, and nothing in particular to attend to.</p><p>It was one of those rare moments that took Zeus and Ganymede down into the mortal realm, wandering cities or visiting some natural wonder of a place, for a whole day. Less rarely now after Ganymede's initial request to 'go out' during what happened to be one of the early Olympic games, but still rare enough for it to be a precious treat. Perhaps not the best time of the year to leave Olympos' sweetly breeze-buffeted warmth for the less moderated weather further down, but the heat of summer had crept into Ganymede's limbs and he simply <i>had</i> to get out, go further.</p><p>He wasn’t the only one between them, surely, for they'd gone on flights several days in a row before this. Not even half of them at Ganymede's request! He wouldn't comment on it, because Zeus would never admit to it if it wasn't Velchania, but it was clear the king of the gods was affected by the high, wavering heat of summer as well.</p><p>It really was terribly hot.</p><p>As soon as they landed shortly outside Athens, a faint, cool breeze stirred, and Ganymede looked up to Zeus with gratitude. The god laughed and then led them on into the city, the breeze proving its worth as it ruffled Ganymede's curls and brushed sweet, airy kisses against his nape.</p><p>Despite the heat Athens was boiling, and not from the shimmering air dancing in the distance. God and cupbearer passed homes with festivities going on in the walled courtyards or up on the roofs, and Ganymede was rather sure there were more people sitting down around the tables he could see than he would have expected. More than that, there were quite a lot of people - slaves, rather - dancing in the streets and playing with astragali.</p><p>A group ran past them, cheering and hollering, and Zeus sighed.</p><p>"I forgot it was the Kronia today," he said, and the set of his mouth would have been called a pout, however faint, on anyone else. Not on Zeus, Father of Gods and Men and lord of Olympos, but on others. On Zeus it was merely disapproval, of course.</p><p>"Kronia?" </p><p>Frowning, Ganymede looked around again, trying to stir his memory what this was all about. It was just, there were so many different celebrations and festivities. On top of that there were different ones between different cities or areas of Hellas, just as they had many different calendars, and it was all terribly confusing and difficult to keep up with. He also didn't have much need to keep track of any of it, contrary to the Deathless Ones who were the focus of the many different celebrations. They never did attend openly any more, not like they might have done before the war, but they still liked to be present every now and then, and so kept attention on when feasts dedicated to them happened.</p><p>The name, at the very least, was obvious, and Ganymede blinked. Glanced sideways, up at Zeus. "They're having a festival in honour of Kronos?"</p><p>It wasn't that he was a Titan, for, no matter how rarely, the Titans were certainly still afforded honours. Rhea most obviously. But Kronos himself, as the leader of the Titans who had stood against the future Olympians? That seemed a little strange. Zeus sighed and gestured vaguely down the street, indicating the groups of slaves scattered around in cheerful freedom and certainly not doing anything that could in the least way be considered work. Ganymede glanced up, too, to a passing house where a loud meal was happening up on the roof, and could pick out several slaves there as well. Sitting beside the family they belonged to, not standing beside to serve.</p><p>"To the supposedly carefree Golden Age, more like, but yes. They are." Zeus snorted, and Ganymede tipped his head, arching an eyebrow.</p><p>"Supposedly?" It occurred to him that he didn't actually know much of anything about how humans had lived under the Titans, aside from the myths everyone still knew about the Golden Age. What he knew focused more on the ten years of war, and some of it that had led to how humans had lived for a very long time by now, though with less and less open intermingling with the gods of the sphere. "Weren't the mortals of the sphere living without having to really work for anything they needed, back then?"</p><p>"Oh no, they were." </p><p>Zeus snatched Ganymede by the shoulder and pulled him back, out of the way of another, more wilder, group running past them. Zeus’ tone drew Ganymede's eyes away from following those slaves’ nearly maenad-like wild procession down the street and up, over his shoulder. Zeus was stately, wearing a chiton under the long, luxurious drape of his himation, the fall of his dark hair stark against the colours of the fabric. The stern darkness in his eyes, turning their usually pale gray colour into the back-lit darkness of an oncoming autumn storm rolling in over distant mountains, seemed much out of place. Though maybe he was just insulted the mortals were celebrating something he and his siblings and the Titans who had joined them had struggled so hard to dismantle.</p><p>Not that they’d necessarily been against the effortless plenty of the Golden Age that mortals had enjoyed, but it'd certainly disappeared as a consequence of the Titans' fall.</p><p>"They were, in the same way you care for your pets, darling Ganymede," Zeus said, looking down to meet wide green eyes and Ganymede stared for a startled moment, then shook his head.</p><p>"But---"</p><p>"Mortals then were kept provided for, the earth giving plenty with only the work needed to harvest. Even the simplest tool was sharp enough to slaughter an animal should meat be desired. The weather was kept controlled so they wouldn't run at any risk of being flooded or their houses collapsing on them, and mortals were happy to join the company of the gods." Zeus looked away, down the street again, his lips pulled back in a subtle snarl. "Mortals who burned out within weeks, because the Titans didn't think to moderate themselves, but it wasn't like the mortals knew that. Since they were so well cared for, there was no need for divine blood mingling with mortal such. And because you don't have sex your pets."</p><p>Ganymede only realized Zeus' hands were on his shoulders still when he blanched, less for the blunt statement and more the implication of what Zeus was saying.</p><p>"But we're not---!" he broke off into a sputter, unable, for once, to quite find words, even less some eloquent argument, for the hot wave of offense that'd bubbled up, washing away the initial annoyed incredulity. Maybe it was only Zeus' framing, but that felt, if not blasphemous then ungenerous, to assume.</p><p>"Not animals? Well," Zeus chuckled wryly, raising a hand to brush fingers down Ganymede's cheek, "humans are, actually, but not in the way you're thinking, my prince. In <i>such</i> manner you're certainly not animals, and are more than capable of taking care of yourselves. It's the only thing Prometheus and I have ever agreed on."</p><p>Zeus' voice had hardened again, and Ganymede slowly looked away from the dizzyingly weighty stare to the sun-lit street around them, the light and warmth a shock. They seemed to be standing in shadow despite that the sun was high in the sky and the narrow strips of darkness cast by walls and houses not offering much protection against the glaring heat. The happy noise around them, so at odds with the grim picture of well-meaning Zeus was painting, rang tinnily in Ganymede's ears for a moment.</p><p>"The only thing? He joined you and the others, didn't he?"</p><p>"Only after Gaia's prophecy that we might win should we choose to free the Kyklopes and the Hekatoncheires, and only after we'd actually <i>done so</i>. It didn't matter much. I just didn't trust him. I simply wasn't expecting him to put the mortals so firmly before all of us, and then also be displeased when I expected more of them. If they can take care of themselves, and they were going to be left to do so with less honours paid to us, they should live up to their potential."</p><p>Which they hadn't been, and also clearly weren't, by the tone in Zeus' voice.</p><p>Ganymede shivered for it, biting his lip. He'd always thought - though he'd never say so - when listening to that story, that taking away the fire from the mortals in the sphere back then had been cruel and drastic, though he'd also come to understand the reason for it. A compromise had clearly been reached after Prometheus had given the fire back, since humans did need fire. Must have, for while animal sacrifices mostly consisted the bare bones and fat and had been for as long as Ganymede could remember and were so still, it wasn't quite so strict, either. Some meat attached to the bones might be burned, and some animal sacrifices would be burnt in their entirety. Zeus' displeasure with mortals' conduct, if not actually perhaps phrased that way because Ganymede had never heard Zeus say anything like that before, was well-known too.</p><p>He didn't much like it, but it did make some sort of sense.</p><p>But then, no one liked to admit to failings. And Ganymede rather had to claim them for his proximity to mortal humans. He was still human, no matter how immortal.</p><p>"So," Ganymede said, worrying his bottom lip and frowning, "they're celebrating something that seems good, but only from what little they know of it?"</p><p>"Prometheus is probably displeased," Zeus said, and his amusement lightened the air around them a little, returning warmth to the chilliness that'd wrapped itself around them. "When he worked so hard to free them of it."</p><p>A pause, and Ganymede looked back up in the silence, watching that sharp, regal face locked into a frowning stillness that brought his breath short for how serious Zeus looked. Often such an expression wasn't usually given to light, in a manner of speaking, topics like this. Zeus' gaze dropped down and the little smile on his face was peculiar. Ganymede couldn't read it, and it was rare he couldn't do so nowadays.</p><p>"Not that there's anything wrong with the carefree life or ideal of equality celebrated, but their reality is certainly far from it." The expression lingered as Zeus gently grasped Ganymede's chin, long, graceful but thick, fingers completely covering it, and brushed his thumb over the sweet swell of Ganymede's lips.</p><p>"... It would be closer to it if the slaves were paid for their work and could choose it, wouldn't it?" Ganymede said after a moment, trying not to squirm under the still-unreadable divine regard. He'd never thought much about slaves before, aside from how, if one should have them they should at the very least be treated well. Set against the ostensible reason for this festival, and that the slaves were clearly freed from work for the day and celebrated alongside their owners, that slavery should exist at all was a stark contrast, like glass shattering.</p><p>"It would." Zeus snorted and let go of Ganymede once more. He swayed a little, catching his balance against the emptiness of weight that always came when Zeus stood so close for a while and also whenever let his divine essence slip away from him. The air around them warmed back up, like the light was pouring back in after having been stoppered away.</p><p>"Should we go elsewhere?" Ganymede asked after a tentative glance down the street. He would much rather experience the celebration, no matter how wrongly it was anchored, than not, but he also wanted to enjoy the day and if Zeus was displeased, he wouldn't be able to.</p><p>"Unless I have ruined it for you, no. We don't have to go elsewhere," Zeus said with a wry smile, gesturing down the street, still as hot and cheerful as it'd been before Zeus had expressed his displeasure. Ganymede smiled, bright and full of light, unable to contain it. Zeus' eyes lightened in turn as he watched him, and slowly all previous hints of annoyance were washed away. Shaking his head, Ganymede turned and led the way, pleased despite his new knowledge.</p><p>Or, honestly, because of it, too. It might not all have been the most pleasant of reality-checks, but understanding more, both of Zeus himself, and the past that the gods were involved in so tightly, wasn't something Ganymede could regret. Could, on the other hand, regret that the slaves would all just be going back to their regular situation come next morning, but the mood of the whole city was exuberant, and it was easy to get wrapped up in it.</p><p>Enough so Ganymede was actually quite tired by the time they made it back, throwing himself face-first onto the bed with a loud, then muffled, groan. He only noticed Zeus had disappeared when he came back in.</p><p>"Ganymede."</p><p>Blinking into the darkness of the pillow he'd mashed his face against, Ganymede sat up after a protesting stretch. Swallowed a sigh as he spotted Zeus, himation now discarded over a nearby chair, holding an oinochoe and a kantharos. He didn't want to get up. Still, he nodded and shifted to twist off the bed, but Zeus shook his head so sternly Olympos itself could have reeled from it, and Ganymede, who was only human though immortal, couldn't move so much as a muscle. </p><p>He was left to stare, confused and growing more so, while Zeus slowly crossed the floor, rounding the wide sea of the bed Zeus called his own to reach the side Ganymede sat closest to.</p><p>Confusion turned to wide-eyed disbelief when Zeus paused and didn't put either the cup or the jug aside to join Ganymede on the bed. Instead he held both with practised, if certainly long-unused, grace, muscles shifting under his skin while he poured the kantharos full of nectar and then put the oinochoe aside. Offered Ganymede the cup with as serious intent as any that Ganymede himself had used through the years whenever they weren't alone, and sometimes even then because he did enjoy the gesture of it, if differently so in private.</p><p>This wasn't a joke. </p><p>Ganymede stared at the kantharos, gold-shimmering red nectar glittering in the light from the little oil lamps scattered around the room, and realized Zeus had switched their roles.</p><p>Just for today, just for this small moment, even if Zeus didn't like the origin of said reason to switch things around. Clearly he'd decided some part of it was worth keeping, however, and Ganymede flushed as he reached out, taking the cup with only the tiniest of trembles to his hands. </p><p>Glanced up past curls and lashes, and Zeus still looked so very serious, intent as he watched his cupbearer raise the kantharos to his lips and drink.</p><p>Ganymede lowered the cup only slowly, and Zeus leaned in, still looking so grave but with a light finally entering his eyes. He kissed him until Ganymede could taste nothing but himself, and smell nothing but Zeus, even with the kantharos still clutched in his hands.</p><p>"You have given me many things through the years, sweet Ganymede, and you have given Olympos as a whole nearly as much. Your skill and grace with your task is unsurpassed - yes, even by my daughter - and your place here is unassailable." Zeus pulled back even as he reached out, his hand massive where he laid it flat against Ganymede's slim chest, then took his hand back to touch his own chest with light fingers, right above his heart. "Here as well, beloved."</p><p>If he was asked to voice his thoughts, Ganymede knew he'd embarrass himself. </p><p>Instead, and the whim that followed was perhaps as embarrassing as not being able to talk, but he acted before he could decide otherwise, Ganymede took another mouthful of nectar. Didn't immediately swallow it down, but rather kept it in his mouth as he rose up on his knees, meeting Zeus where he stood leaning over him. Slid an arm around that graceful, strong neck, skin so smooth under his hand it always invited to more touch. Ganymede would've smiled if his mouth wasn’t full, shyly pleased but also blushing, for the brief widening of Zeus' eyes right before he was close enough to kiss him.</p><p>They didn't spill a single drop of the nectar in Ganymede's mouth, though Zeus quickly took the precariously held cup from Ganymede and put it away beside the oinochoe. Spilled his cupbearer instead of any nectar onto his bed, and followed up onto it to cover the precious figure that held one half of his heart.</p>
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